As 2023 draws to a close many of us will be thinking of new years resolutions. But why wait?

The best time to upgrade your lifestyle was yesterday, sorry you missed it, the next best is NOW! If you wait for the perfect conditions you will never start.

3 Keys

Key 1: Know what you want to achieve.

Your overall goal can be as outlandish as you want, as long as you can picture it, Arnold used to picture his biceps as mountains.

You then need to brake the overall goals down into achievable segments. Making these segment S.M.A.R.T is a good idea. So if weight loss was a goal you could look at either actual weight or just body fat. You can also measure that as weight in Lbs or Kg, or as a percentage of body weight.

Lets look closer at weight loss.

One pound of fat is 3500 Kcal so to lose one pound a week we need to create a calorie deficit of 500 Kcal per day. We can do this in to ways.

First – increase the amount of calories we burn by 500 Kcal.

Second – decrease the amount we consume by 500 Kcal.

OR Combine the two!

So what would they look like?

Exercise:

Cardio Kcal/Hr = 300 – 600 (after burn 50)

HIIT = 600 – 800 (after burn 500)

Weight Training = 400 – 500 (after burn 500)

Ok so we could spend an hour on a treadmill EVERY day to burn off 500 Kcal. YES that’s EVERY DAY no exceptions. Or we could just do HIIT but a long HIIT session is still only 30 min (300 Kcal in session) every other day. So how about weights 400 Kcal in session. Now add a 10 minute HIIT finisher to a weight session. 400 + 200 Kcal in session and 750 the next day. All aspects of fitness taken care of 750 average increase in output per day when done just 3 times a week.

This of course presumes you are starting form balanced calories and you are not in excess still before you start. If you are still eating too many calories this will still help change your body composition for the better but you may not lose weight or even fat. So take a look at you diet too. As they say, “You can’t out exercise a bad diet”.

If your diet is stable and you do not increase consumption you can expect to lose 1 to 2 lbs per week. This is the recommended healthy rate to lose body weight and also the easiest to maintain the weight loss once you lose it.

What if I don’t want to lose weight?

No problem, follow the same example as above weights and HIIT but add an extra 500 to 750 Kcal to your intake. Ether 250 for each meal or an extra meal works well. You can drop the HIIT if you are not recovering between sessions (weight training is still cardiovascular, ask anyone after heavy squats, so your heart and lungs still do something).

Will Weight Training More Often Help?

In the short term it may. But in the long term it won’t! You make improvements to your body by a combination of exercise recovery and repair.

First the exercise stimulates a need for improvement, this is because the exercise is actually damaging our muscles.

Second is the recovery phase, were the muscles are weaker and just trying to refuel themselves. This will last around 48 hours and increase as we age.

Next as part of the FULL repair if we have the right nutrients we get an upgrade. So our muscles are now stronger and more resident to damage. This is call the super compensation curve. It’s the perfect time to train again, but it doesn’t last forever. For most of us if you don’t train those movements again within 9 days we will need to use the same load or less because we missed the window. So, as little as once a week works for strength gains although 2 or 3 would see faster gains for those able to recover from their previous sessions quick enough.

Simplicity Works Best

Over complicating your exercise programme only makes it more interesting to our head not our muscles, bones, endocrine system and every thing else. This principle, of minimal effort for maximum return, should be followed until it doesn’t work any more. Then and ONLY then add the next layer of complexity. Working the whole body can be done with 4 or 5 deferent exercises, 1/ The Squat, 2/ Overhead Press 3/ Deadlift 4/ Bench Press 5/ Cleans or Pull Ups

Key 2: Your 5 WHY

1- You need to ask yourself why the goal is important to you.

2- Take the answer above and ask why again.

3-5 And again and again.
If you burst out crying while doing this you nailed it.

Now you have your why, you have your motivation!

Key 3: How Far Are You Willing To Go?

Anything worthwhile requires some restraint.

“You can’t have your cake and eat it!!!”

Look at what you’re willing to give up to achieve your goal, do you consider it worth it?

This may not be just food remember, if you give up drink and your total social network is organized around the pub, you may need to cut some of your friends lose, especially those who don’t want to see you succeed! And there will be some.

Summary

Ok, to wrap thing up then.

Set goals both long term and short, keeping the short term ones achievable.

Ask yourself why your doing it, This is the key to your motivation and it will help you the most when you start and when you’re struggling.

Know how far you want to go with it and what you may need to give up to achieve it.

Do you need help putting this together?